Digital Twins for Advancing Emergency Management in the Built Environment: A Systematic Review of Core Capabilities, Trends, and Future Directions

Abstract

Digital twins (DTs) are revolutionizing traditional practices in the operation and maintenance of constructed facilities and enhancing emergency management (EM). This literature review presents a detailed knowledge map with a bibliometric analysis that identifies how DTs can empower EM across different mission areas and core capabilities. The results highlight DT’s prevailing trends in the built environment and identify significant research gaps in its role in full-scale EM paradigms. DTs for EM have received less exploration and unbalanced attention compared to other management domains. While a few conceptual frameworks are available, certain functions or systems tend to overlook the full picture. Furthermore, DTs’ deployment strategies and information capabilities have not yet been tested for timely decision-making and communication enhancement across stages. Crucially, the limited theoretical and empirical validations of the performance, usability, and reliability necessitate more in-depth research with practitioners as well as other stakeholders, particularly in the early planning and recovery phases. Accordingly, this study outlines future research and practical directions, emphasizing the need for theoretical enhancement, system integration, and longitudinal plans.